


Reality is What You Make of It

by dragonydreams



Series: Captain Canary & Rogue Canary Tumblr Prompt Fics [27]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-15
Updated: 2016-10-15
Packaged: 2018-08-22 11:29:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8284238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonydreams/pseuds/dragonydreams
Summary: Prompt from ethala: The Legends are on a mission and Leonard does something (like kill a person, or steal something) that accidentally blinks Sara out of existence once they get back to the Waverider. They go on an emergency mission to get her back and fix it. The team is varying levels of pissed at Snart/worried about Sara, but only Mick really knows how guilt-ridden and worried Len truly is.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I claim no ownership over these characters. I am merely borrowing them from Greg Berlanti, Marc Guggenheim, Andrew Kreisberg and Phil Klemmer.
> 
> Betas: Thank you to angelskuuipo and shanachie for looking this over for me.

An alarm blared as red emergency lights flashed around them. Leonard had his cold gun trained on the scientist that was kneeling before him as Kendra urged him to leave.

"Please," the scientist begged. "My wife, Jessica, is sick. I'm all she has to find a cure."

"Don't care," Leonard sniffed. "What you're working on is dangerous, not a cure."

"It's my life's work," he insisted.

"And this is mine," Leonard countered, blasting him through the heart with a beam of ice.

"What did you do?" Kendra gasped from the door. 

"I stopped the evil scientist from creating a lethal virus that Savage could use to wipe out mankind," Leonard said. "Let's get out of here."

He turned and began to run through the hallways with Kendra on his heels. 

The rest of the team was waiting for them on the main deck when they arrived. Leonard went to lean against the chair Sara was sitting on, his hand dropping down to squeeze her shoulder quickly to let her know that he was safe. It was a habit they'd taken to; a quick touch of assurance if they were on separate missions.

She turned to look up at him and gave him a quick smile, waiting for the mission report.

"It's done?" Rip asked, rubbing his hands together.

"Drug is vaporized, along with the scientist," Leonard confirmed, smirking.

"What did you say?" Rip asked, spinning back from his pacing to stare open-mouthed at Leonard.

"Iced the scientist along with the virus," Leonard said, proudly. He frowned at the look of dismay on Rip's face. "What's the problem?" Before Rip could respond, he looked down, then around the room, and asked, "Hey, where's Sara? I thought she was here a moment ago."

"That is the problem," Rip ground out through clenched teeth. "The man you just killed in 2005 was Anthony Ivo, the man who rescued Sara after the Gambit went down in 2007."

All of the blood drained out of Leonard's face as that news sank in. Murmurs went around the room as the rest of the team voiced their disbelief and shock.

"Gideon, last report of Sara Lance," Rip requested, needing to drive home what had just happened.

"Sara Lance died after Robert Queen's ship, the Queen's Gambit, sank in the North China Sea in 2007," Gideon reported.

"What about Ta-er al-Safar in the League of Assassins?" Rip asked.

"No such person has ever been a member of the League of Assassins," Gideon reported.

"Why didn't you warn me this could happen?" Leonard raged. 

"How was I to know you'd be stupid enough to kill the man who saved Sara's life?" Rip countered.

"You should have told us who he was," Leonard yelled.

"If I'd thought you were careless enough to kill a man when you were only sent in to destroy a virus, perhaps I would have," Rip said. "I made the mistake of thinking you had better control of yourself."

"Don't put this all on me," Leonard snapped. "If I'd had all of the information, I wouldn't have done it."

"Good to know your moral code only goes so far as whether or not it will result in your teammates being wiped from existence," Rip rejoined.

"How do we get her back?" Ray asked.

"We can't," Rip said. "Soon, you will all cease to even remember you'd ever met her."

"I don't accept that," Leonard said.

"You can't very well unkill a man," Rip said. "Not without damaging the timeline more. Not without running into your recent past selves in the process."

"What if we make something that prevents the blast from Mr. Snart's cold gun from killing him?" Martin suggested.

"Like a Kevlar vest stops bullets?" Jax asked.

"Precisely," Martin agreed. "Only one designed to absorb the cold rather than bullets."

"Someone who hasn't interacted with Dr. Ivo could get it to him so that when Leonard and Kendra show up, he still won't recognize them," Ray suggested.

"That may work," Rip reluctantly agreed. "Get to work on your chest piece and Gideon will set a course to go back to earlier in the day."

Mick, who had been silently observing everything that was going on, went over to Leonard and quietly said, "Come on, I've got a drink with your name on it while the nerd squad figures this out."

Before they had left the room, Martin called out, "Mr. Snart, may we borrow your cold gun for testing?"

Leonard, who normally would never let anyone else handle his weapon, simply lifted it out of his holster and held it out to the older man.

Martin blinked his surprise, but refrained from saying anything except, "Thank you."

Leonard nodded and silently followed Mick out of the room. 

Once alone in Mick's room, Leonard sank onto the bed, in shock. "I killed her," he whispered.

"Not exactly," Mick said, handing Leonard a flask.

Leonard took it, but didn't drink. "I killed the man who saved her. How is that not killing her? She's gone. Soon we won't even remember her." He looked up at Mick with wet eyes, his voice thick with emotion.

"Haircut and the Professor will find a way to save him, so he can save her," Mick said, confident in his teammates' abilities.

"She died alone and scared," Leonard mumbled. 

"We'll get her back," Mick insisted, grabbing Leonard's shoulders and forcing him to meet his eyes. "This is what we do. We screw up and then we fix it."

"I love her, Mick," Leonard whispered. "I never even got a chance to tell her."

"I know you do," Mick said with a sigh, sitting next to his partner. "Anyone who had eyes could see that. I'm sure she knew. Just like you know she loves you, too."

"He should have told me what was at risk," Leonard said, tiredly. 

"No argument here," Mick agreed.

Mick lifted the untouched flask from Leonard's hands and took a sip, allowing them to lapse into silence.

~~*~~

"Why didn't you stop him?" Jax asked Kendra as they watched Martin and Ray theorize about how to make the cold vest.

"What could I have done?" Kendra retorted. "I was keeping watch. I didn't know he was going to kill Ivo. I think the alarm spooked him and he reverted back to his criminal ways of leaving no witnesses."

"Rip should have told us who we were going after," Ray added, echoing what Leonard had said earlier. "This could have been avoided if we'd known the scientist being targeted was someone important to Sara's survival. We didn't have all of the information."

"And you believe that Snart would have made a different choice if he'd had all the information?" Jax questioned.

"Considering they've been together for the past several months, yeah, I'm pretty sure he would have," Ray said.

"What are you talking about?" Jax asked.

"You seriously didn't know they were together?" Kendra asked. "I thought it was something everyone knew, but that no one talked about."

"They certainly don't act like a couple," Jax mumbled.

"Not all couples are demonstrative, Jefferson," Martin said. "Although the signs were there if you knew what to look for."

"So I'm the only one who didn't know?" Jax asked.

"Looks like it," Kendra said, patting him on the arm.

"Do you think she died when the ship sank or did she survive only to die later?" Ray asked.

"Morbid much?" Jax responded.

"She told me that she was alone on a plank of wood for days before the ship picked her up," Kendra said. "If there was no ship, then she probably died from starvation, or she allowed herself to drown."

"What an awful way to die," Martin said.

"But we're going to stop that," Jax said, hopefully. "Y'all are going to get that thing to work so that the scientist lives and saves her."

"Yes, he saved her to live in fear on a slave ship and then be trained to as an assassin who later is killed by her friend's little sister, only to be resurrected a year later," Ray said.

"Are you saying that you think she would have been better off dying?" Kendra asked, appalled.

"No, of course not," Ray sputtered. "I'm just saying that her life after that boat went down wasn't a fun one."

"Not until she joined our little adventure," Martin said.

"Yeah, because there's no danger in what we do," Jax said, sarcastically.

"She found love here," Martin said. "That always makes the hardships worthwhile."

"That's what she said about Nyssa and her time with the League," Kendra agreed.

"I believe we have figured out how to make a vest to save Dr. Ivo," Martin said, stepping back from the board he and Ray had been making calculations on. He quickly jotted some notes onto a piece of paper and handed it to Kendra. "Ms. Saunders, would you please ask Gideon to fabricate a Kevlar vest with these specifications? We'll make the remaining modifications from there."

"Of course," Kendra said, taking the paper and heading for the fabrication room while Martin and Ray began to explain to Jax how he would help to make the adjustments they needed.

~~*~~

Once the vest was finished and tested, Rip took the Waverider back to earlier that day and went to deliver the vest to Ivo himself, muttering about the possibilities of damaging the timeline even more and operating for selfish reasons.

The rest of the team hung out on the main deck while they waited to see what happened.

"How will we know if it worked?" Mick asked.

"I suppose that she'll just reappear with us," Martin speculated.

"Who will?" Jax asked.

"The girl," Kendra said. "The one Rip went to stop from being killed."

"Sara," Leonard said. Everyone but Mick looked at him in confusion. "Her name is Sara."

"Whose name is Sara?" Ray asked.

"The girl Rip is trying to save," Leonard said, standing and beginning to pace. 

Mick led him into Rip's study. 

"They're starting to forget her," Leonard said, sounding desperate. "What if we forget, too?"

"You were the closest to her," Mick said. "Makes sense you'd remember her longest."

"Say her name," Leonard practically begged. "I need to know you remember her, too."

"Sara Lance," Mick said, causing Leonard to let out a long breath. "Rip's gonna do it. He'll save Ivo, which means he'll save Sara."

"What if she's not here when he does?" Leonard desperately asked. "What if we've already changed her future by doing this? Just because we save Ivo doesn't mean that he'll still live his life the same way. What if he doesn't go on his crazy search on the Amazo and never saves Sara?"

Mick slapped Leonard to get him to calm down.

Leonard shook his head and then smirked at his partner. "Thanks, I needed that."

"For all we know, this is how it was always supposed to be. Maybe if we hadn't destroyed the virus, Ivo would have found his miracle cure without ever leaving home and Sara would still have died. Maybe because we destroyed this virus he began to look elsewhere for a solution. Maybe we're the reason that Sara gets saved," Mick suggested.

"Is that even possible?" Leonard asked.

Mick shrugged. "Time wants to happen."

Leonard was about to ask another question when a voice he never thought he'd hear again interrupted them.

"There you are," Sara said, entering the study. "One second I was sitting out there waiting to hear a mission report and the next you, Mick, and Rip were all gone from the room."

Leonard was across the room as soon as his shocked feet could move. He pulled Sara close, one arm around her back as the other hand slid into her hair as his mouth crashed down on hers. 

Mick slipped out of the room, silently thanking Rip for getting the job done, not wanting to see what happened to his partner if Sara hadn't been returned to him.

Sara kissed Leonard back, hands reaching up to cup his face, wondering why he was kissing her with such desperation. 

When the kiss finally ended, Sara pulled back enough to meet his eyes. Her fingers stroked the stubble on his cheeks as she asked, "What was that for? You kissed me like you thought you were never going to see me again."

"That's it exactly," Leonard said, his voice breaking just a bit.

"What are you talking about? I'm right here," Sara said, stroking her hands down the back of his neck and over his shoulders.

"But you weren't," Leonard said. "I...I screwed up."

"Leonard, you're not making any sense," Sara said.

"I can't do this here," he said, grabbing her hand and leading her towards the bunks. 

Sara worried about this strange behavior. Leonard never took her hand in public, let alone dragged her around. She didn't protest though, assuming this had to do with the other weird behavior he was displaying.

She barely registered the calls of "welcome back" from the rest of the team as Leonard pulled her past them.

Once they were safely ensconced in Leonard's room, he finally released her hand.

"Leonard, you're really starting to worry me," Sara said, sliding her arms around his waist. "You're not acting like yourself. You never touch me around the team, let alone kiss me in public. What's going on?"

Leonard settled his hands on Sara's hips, his fingers slipping beneath her shirt and digging into her flesh. The touch of her skin helped to ground him, a bit.

"What's the last thing you remember?" he asked her, carefully meeting her eyes.

"What's that got to do with--?"

"Please, just humor me," Leonard requested, cutting her off.

Sara thought back. "You and Kendra had gone on a mission to destroy a virus Savage wanted. You were about to give your mission report, but when I turned around, you were in Rip's study instead."

Leonard nodded. "Okay. The scientist who created the virus was named Anthony Ivo."

"W-what?" Sara stuttered in shock. 

"See, Rip didn't tell us who it was, so when he set off the alarm I reacted badly and iced him," Leonard admitted.

"You killed Ivo?" Sara numbly asked. "In 2005?"

"Yes," Leonard said. 

"But if he died in 2005, then he couldn't rescue me," Sara said. She turned wide eyes on Leonard, who held her tighter. "I died?" she choked out.

"I've never been so scared in my life," Leonard told her. "One second you were sitting next to me and the next you were gone. Blinked out of existence."

"I died," Sara screeched, stumbling back out of Leonard's embrace. 

Leonard winced. "But we got you back," he pointed out. 

"How?" Sara asked, wrapping her arms around herself as she leaned against his bed.

"The science geeks figured out a way to make a vest for Ivo to wear that would absorb my cold gun blast. Rip went back earlier in the day to deliver it to him. Guess it worked because you're here."

"How could Rip let this happen?" Sara wondered. "How could he not tell you who the mark was to avoid something like this happening? Was he trying to get rid of me?"

"It's Rip, who knows what he was thinking. Although I don't think this was some weird Time Master way of killing you. He wouldn't have brought you onto the team if he was just going to erase you later," Leonard said.

"I need to sit," Sara said, not moving from where she leaned. 

"Bed's right behind you," Leonard reminded her. 

"Huh? Oh, right." Sara hopped up so she was now sitting on the bed. 

Cautiously, Leonard approached her. When she widened her legs for him to step between, he let out a sigh of relief.

"I swear that had I known who he was, I wouldn't have killed Ivo," Leonard said, brushing the hair back off of Sara's shoulders.

"I believe you," Sara said. "I don't know why I'm so surprised that Rip didn't tell you a key piece of information, but I am."

"Please tell me you're going to punch him the next time you see him," Leonard said.

"As hard as I can," Sara assured him.

"Do you want to hit me?" Leonard asked. "I probably deserve it for having pulled the trigger."

"Only because you didn't have all of the information," Sara said.

"Sara, there's something I need to tell you," Leonard said. "I should have told you before now, but I'm not good at this."

Sara searched his eyes and smiled. "You don't have to say it; I know. You know I do, too, right?"

"You do?" Leonard squeaked.

"I've loved you for a while now, I thought you knew that," Sara said.

"It's one thing to know it, and another to say it," he said. "I love you, Sara. So much it scares me."

"I love you, Leonard, more than I thought possible," Sara told him. 

Leonard closed the distance between them, meeting her in passionate kiss. Their lips teased and tasted, assuring themselves, and each other, that they were real and in love.

As Sara trailed her lips down Leonard's jaw and neck, he clutched her to him. "Don't ever leave me like that again," he pleaded.

Sara sat back to meet his eyes. "Wasn't my call, but I promise to do my best to never leave you; but you have to promise the same."

"You've got a deal," Leonard said, drawing her back in for a hungry kiss.

The End


End file.
